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Month: August 2016

There was Sun and there was Moon. They were lovers, estranged because they had to be, because the universe had rules, and those rules placed a planet between them for all but a few days each year. This was how the universe was meant to be, with celestial bodies knowing their place.

But celestial bodies are bodies like any other, craving closeness and companionship.

For millions of years, Sun and Moon lived for those scant few hours. They spoke of comets kissing and the vastness of space and the glory of eternity. They told each other every time they could that everything felt less empty when they were face to face. Every once in a while, luck would lean in their favor and they would catch a glimpse of each other over the planet that divided them, but it wasn’t quite the same. It was never the same.

Their love was an old one, an ancient one. One that existed before paltry people came up with a vague idea of what love was, let alone a definition that could never live up to the actual thing. For millions of years, Moon loved with a breathlessness that matched his atmosphere. For millions of years, Sun loved with a heat that put her skin to shame.

At some point, they realized that they could be more than their collective existence. They could branch out from themselves – craft a body, an outlet – provided that their love and dedication was pure enough. It would be a risk. A gamble. So they hatched an idea together, as they watched the planet pass between them each day, hoping for a look at each other as Moon did his dedicated circuit around it.

And one night arose that the skies were clear and Moon was exposed fully to the planet. With great effort, a part of him pulled free and formed itself and slid down through the exosphere, the thermosphere, and each layer after, through the troposphere, until his feet touched earth and he was able to look up to see the night sky from a brand new perspective. There were stars glittering out there, little pearls, pale glass, and none of them could ever measure up to his Sun. But he fell in love with the night all the same. He saw his body, the prison destined to circle the planet, and it glowed and he glowed with pride in seeing it.

And Sun. Sun rode the auroras. She lashed her whip around the shifting greens and purples and slipped down, around the magnetic curve of the world. She settled down and hooked her hand over her eyes as she watched the body she separated from hover in the sky, a constant, a promised heat, a light that flickered and flared with temper.

Sun and Moon had taken the hearts of themselves and infused them with soul and humanity. They left their bodies behind and allowed their love to create something grounded.

Yet.

Yet as accustomed as they were to vast space and the magnificence of the cosmos, they failed to take into consideration that – once they were reduced to a planetary level – the Earth could be a very big place. They did not know where they were, much less where the other was. They were no longer sentinels of the sky. They had become drops in an ocean.

Sun and Moon wandered the Earth aimlessly. They learned things. They loved things. The scent of flowers in bloom. The haunting notes floating from a street saxophonist. A little girl letting a stray kitten drink from her water bottle. A young man paying for the coffee of the elderly woman behind him in line. Sun and Moon learned. Sun and Moon loved.

Sun and Moon were so, so lost.

Sun took up the flute as a hobby, the piping sounds reminding her of the hours just before dawn, when dew still slept on leaves and the stags tread lightly through the forest. Moon took up writing, the obsidian sky beckoning his thoughts, begging them to become new constellations. They played and wrote with broken hearts. Millions of years barely spent together and yet the mere months apart upon taking Earthly form may as well have been forever.

Sun left the home she made for herself one day, left it for a beach, a foreign one, one where her body caressed the water line at night and she could watch herself paint deep colors across the evening wind as the day wound down. She walked across the sand, bare feet, grains between her toes.

That was when she saw him. Moon. Sitting there, just out of reach of the high tide, the waves lapping at his feet, promising to be cool, promising to be clean. Moon was writing poems, poems of love, of longing for the heart behind the body that left him at the end of each day. He had written many and saved them all, but he had been desperate to know where to send them, where to let Sun know he loved her.

Their eyes caught at dusk, across the beach, alone except for the waves, softly crashing, gently coaxing. Sun and Moon, face to face. Then body to body. Finally. Finally.

I joke about suicide. I do. “God, I’d rather kill myself than listen to this song.” “God, waiting in line makes me want to drink bleach.”

My godbrother shot himself in the head in his parking lot because his girlfriend broke up with him, ten minutes before his parents came home.

I joke about things being the end of the world. I joke about slitting my wrists before listening to another drug-addled stranger listing all the reasons everyone but themselves ruined their life.

Two of my friends hung themselves. One with barbed wire. That guy asked a girl he loved to find him. I spoke at his funeral.

I joke about suicide constantly. I think about suicide constantly. I don’t think people understand it.

It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted to kill myself. I’m not going to shy away from the fact that that was a thing. “What do I contribute to life?” “I’ve been single this long, who will love me?” “I’m adopted. I can’t even have a real family.”

That’s the tip of a bad day. Without getting into details, pushing 3o where I am is not great. Easy. Not great.

I used to have a mantra. I told a girlfriend not long ago, first person I ever told, that I was planning on checking out just after my 30th birthday. “You made it. 3 decades. You’re good to go, my son.” I said that and I told her I was worried I was going to party too hard or get cross-checked by a minivan before 3o and it wouldn’t mean shit. I thought 30 was the milestone I should reach before checking the fuck out.

I will never call a suicide selfish. Go fuck yourself. Nobody kills themsef for attention they won’t ever be able to appreciate. It’s to alleviate depression. Isolation. A sense of shame. An internal pain that lingers and haunts and hurts and taunts on its own, even before outside stimulus amplifies it. I understand suicide as much as I hate that anyone reaches the conclusion that suicide is the answer.

You aren’t a thief. But you look at something in the store and you think about how you might steal it or the thrill of one misadventure or what it would save you. You aren’t violent. But you think about the reaction or hopefully the silence you might get if you were to slap the mouth of a braggart.

I am not suicidal. I have been. I’ve tried. I tried leaving this life. I’ve been close to leaving this life since (blood poisoning). I’m not convinced that decades down the line, my leaving this world won’t be intentional. But for now, I’m not suicidal. I’ve found things to live for.

It’s never something that’s left my mind. It’s an act of pain. It’s an act of release. In some cases, through final notes and letters, it’s an act of art. There is something to be said of knowing the deliberate thoughts of someone who has finished with their experience.

I joke about suicide. I joke about death. I have cried every time someone I knew took their life. I cried when Robin Williams had enough of what was already afflicting him and didn’t want to to add more to the list. I joke about it because I’ve wanted to do it. I joke about it because I don’t know if I want thirty more years of aimlessness.

I joke about it in concept. But I respect it. I understand it. At the worst times in my life, I wanted it. I joke about it without specifics because it’s heartbreaking and tragic and because I’ve been there, and I don’t know any other way of dealing with it.

You need to be able to laugh about anything. Especially things close to your heart. Especially things that fucking hurt. If you can’t find something to laugh about in a ruinous situation, it will ruin you.

I will never, EVER, joke about a suicide victim. But I will joke about suicide. I’ll take the piss out of it. I’ll lighten it. I’ll disregard it. Because I’ve been there. Because it haunts me. Because it likes to step on my shit. And sometimes laughter and lightheartedness and detachment are what’s called for.

That’s how I deal with it. It isn’t always great.

I hope you’re okay. If you aren’t, feel free to reach out. Or please, PLEASE Call 1-800-273-8255. They’re available 24/7.

Life, even in its ugliness, is worth enjoying. It’s worth making fun of and spitting in the face of.